Commentary By

Vijay Menon is a research assistant for Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order last April that called for policy reforms to, among other things, “improve employment outcomes and economic independence.”

Nearly one year later, the president’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2020 doubles down on this goal by renewing policies to promote work in means-tested welfare programs.

Trump’s “Budget
for a Better America” proposes to strengthen work requirements in
programs such as food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or
TANF, to help work-capable adults move toward greater self-support.

Many Americans agree with the president’s goals.

Nearly 90 percent of Americans say they agree
with the principle that adults who are able to work should be required to work
or prepare for work in exchange for government assistance. Americans see work requirements as one
important way for welfare programs to merge compassion and fairness.

Americans also broadly
recognize work as a fundamental source of well-being in their own lives.

Most report that work gives them a sense of identity, as
opposed to being something they just do for a living. In fact, more than
two-thirds say that they would work in a paying job even if they didn’t need the
money.

Job satisfaction has been consistently high (at around 90
percent) since Gallup started polling on it in the early 1990s.

These positive feelings toward work should come as no
surprise.

As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes in his book “The
Happiness Hypothesis,” humans have a “basic drive to make this
happen,” and one way this commonly manifests itself is through work.

In other words, work empowers us to connect and engage
productively with our environments, and thus provides us with a sense of
meaning and purpose.

Yet despite the inherent value of work, the government’s current
means-tested programs generally do little to promote work. Instead, these programs
often discourage work by reducing benefits as recipients earn more income.

Last year, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported
that most recipients of means-tested assistance who are capable of work
actually work few hours or not at all.

Even in the program at the core of the successful 1996
welfare reform, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, nearly half of
work-capable individuals currently are idle, neither working nor preparing for
work.

Low levels of work keep people from achieving their full
potential.

For example, an additional year of employment for a
low-skilled adult aged 18-35 boosts his long-term future wages by 4 percent, on
average. Less work, therefore, undermines his earnings capacity and ability to
flourish.

Yet recent calls for expansive policies such as universal
basic income are completely devoid of work provisions. The now-deleted FAQ
page for the left’s Green New Deal promised “economic security” for
those who are “unwilling to work.”

Advocates of universal basic income, which guarantees cash
payments to everyone regardless of need, often cheer the fact that the idea decouples
work from income.

However, we know from social psychology and public opinion
that work has value in and of itself. Dismissing this basic idea—and failing to
apply it to public programs—would be a damaging development.

The Trump administration is right to focus on work in its
new budget proposal.

In addition to strengthening work in TANF and food stamps,
Congress and the administration should consider reforms proposed by The
Heritage Foundation to go further. A good place to start: Reform the earned
income tax credit to increase work incentives.

The earned income tax credit is a broadly supported program
that rewards work among low-income earners. Congress should reform the credit to
encourage work more effectively, namely by linking the credit to hours worked,
as well as to reduce
fraud and marriage penalties.

Our policies must do more to promote work for those who are
able to work. The Trump administration is doing its part, calling in its budget
outline for “bold proposals to help able-bodied adults … enter the job market
and work toward self-sufficiency.”

The president’s budget proposal offers a great start toward advancing
a vision of greater self-reliance and human flourishing.

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